“Buenaventura” means “good luck” (buena ventura) or “fortune”. But it’s way more appropriate to think of it as “buen’ aventura” or “grand adventure”. And the adventure is whether or not you survive.

I’m sitting in the way-back of a station wagon, one hour and 40 minutes into a 2-hour journey, thinking “this is probably information you should have offered two hours and 10 minutes ago, friend”. We’re nearly to Córdoba where I had been expecting to trade the sweaty way-back for a breezy brujita (a motorcycle-pushed makeshift raft that travels the abandoned railway) to San Cipriano. I’ve just asked Hermán – the oily business man who calls me “gringa” like it’s not offensive and thinks having a sister who’s lived in NYC for 25 years makes him somehow better than the other passengers – how much longer he thinks we have, when the man sitting on my left – the one with zero respect for personal space in shared backseats – prompts the other passengers into a conversation about how dangerous it will be to stop in Córdoba.

The consensus is that I won’t make it to San Cipriano without being robbed and, judging by the crude sign language, the sides of my face shredded to ribbons by the thieves’ fearsome fingernails.

Quick geography lesson, kids: Picture an isosceles triangle with the hour-long base going North-South from Buga to Cali and the two 2-hour-long legs stretching west to San Cipriano, then one hour further west to Buenaventura on the Pacific coast. I’m on the Buga-San Cip leg, nearly to the vertex, when homeboy speaks up about my impending doom. Doom which we could have all discussed at the terminal in Buga when we had the first conversation about how I was going to disembark in Córdoba to continue onto San Cip. (You know, when it was first decided that even though I was to be the second person getting out of the car, it was best to stick me in the middle of the way-back instead of Oily Hermán.)

The thing about traveling in Colombia is people are constantly telling you you’re about to die – or get robbed and have your face scratched off. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really dangerous places in Colombia (eg Segovia) and I personally know more than five people who’ve been robbed, even in places or situations that aren’t considered risky. But come ON; enough already with the face-scratching and doom-saying. Lonely Planet is nothing if not conservative on safety – their “off the beaten path” locations are usually on quite-beaten paths – and my guidebook definitely says I shouldn’t miss San Cip.

In any case, I’m now in the sweaty way-back of a station wagon being told of my impending doom while my stomach acid starts to flow and I try to determine my actual risk and whether being robbed of my netbook and passport is really worth a round-trip on a brujita.

In the end I decide that if I had stashed my passport and majority of my cash in my undies (ie the money belt I save for overnight buses) and if I had backed up my photos then I would have risked it. But if these people think it’s better to stay the night in Buenaventura and return to San Cip in the morning, I’ll do that. Part of backpacking is flexibility, no? Also, I just spent $200 on new bras that my dad carted from Colorado to Trinidad.

As we pass the junction, Mr Personal Space points and says “See? Would you really want to walk through there?” It seemed fine – it was light out at only 3:45 p.m. and there were loads of people around – if my fellow passengers hadn’t spooked me, I probably would have walked through without a second thought.

Everyone seems quite happy that I’ve decided not to disembark and about the third time that Oily Hermán brags that his sister lives in NYC, I tune out of the conversation and turn on my international data plan (usually reserved for work) to research a place to stay in Buenaventura.

“See? Wouldn’t you rather stay there?” asks Mr Personal Space pointing to a dilapidated concrete compound surrounded by razor-wire fences and men with guns (you can’t really trust military people here, so I refuse to refer to them as any kind of official like army or police), featuring an empty pool landscaped by dead palm trees, located approximately three inches from the side of the highway. “Oh boy,” I think, “if this is what passes as ‘vacation’ around here … and why aren’t there any hostels in Buenaventura?”

With no luck in the LP guide, hostel sites, or TripAdvisor, I open up the WikiTravel page. Fun (unverified) fact about “safer” Buenaventura: The murder rate has doubled in the last two years and is now 24-times that of NYC. A cursory Google search shows that NYC is enjoying its lowest murder rate in several years at only 333 in 2013.

Here’s some awesome math: 24 x 33 = 7992   Even awesomer math: 7992 / 365 = 21.896   That’s right, 22 people are murdered every day in “safer” Buenaventura. Mr Personal Space is surprised … and then seemingly decides not to believe me.

Now we’ve come to Oily Hermán’s stop. He lives in “the best” neighborhood in Buenaventura and let’s not forget that his sister has lived in NYC for 25 years. He thinks I should stay at his house. Obviously not. “Oh, that’s very nice of you, but I’m going to continue to the terminal, thanks.”

Now Tone-Def Thug and Señora Silencia are also gone. Mr Personal Space has one last piece of wisdom as he exits the car: “It’s good you didn’t go with [Oily Hermán]; you don’t know who he is.” Thanks for the insight, guy. Just the driver, Little John, and I head to the terminal; Little John giggling at me the entire way. At the terminal, the faciliator wants to know where I am headed. “To Cali, of course.”

Yes, to Cali. I have done the research about Buenaventura, so clearly I cannot choose to stay here. And it is too late to head back to San Cip – I definitely wouldn’t find a brujita in Córdoba at 6 p.m. – so clearly I cannot choose to stay there. And there will be no more buses to Buga, so clearly I cannot choose to backtrack (not that I would want to).

And so Cali it is: a trip that for normal people takes an hour and costs $10 took me SEVEN hours and cost $20.

PS: upon arriving at my Cali hostel, the WorkAway volunteer informs me that San Cip is cool but not THAT cool. Although “you kind of feel like you’re in Africa. ‘Cause, like, EVERYONE is black. Like, REAL black.” Presumably the jungle, small population, and lack of roads also help differentiate it from, say, Baltimore.